CFU PRESS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

September 13, 2024, 1:00 PM 

Contact: [email protected]

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www.campaignforuyghurs.org

Washington, D.C. – Campaign for Uyghurs (CFU) strongly condemns the report presented today by UN Special Rapporteur Alena Douhan at the Human Rights Council, which claims that unilateral sanctions negatively affect human rights, particularly in East Turkistan. This report dangerously diverts attention from the Chinese government’s atrocities and undermines the legitimacy of sanctions, despite overwhelming evidence of state-imposed forced labor and genocide.

Douhan’s long history of defending dictatorships and her ties to China raise serious questions about the objectivity of this report. By ignoring credible evidence of state-imposed forced labor and systemic repression in East Turkistan, Douhan diverts attention from Beijing’s crimes, and seeks to erode the credibility of sanctions—a legitimate exercise of national sovereignty. Her claims that sanctions are “crimes against humanity,” are absurd given that they were enacted in response to actual crimes against humanity against the Uyghur people, as affirmed by the UN’s own human rights office. Her vague and untenable legal reasoning corrupts the UN system, undermining its integrity and betraying the victims it claims to protect.

The “Douhan Report” also claims “over-compliance” by businesses, implying that corporations face undue pressure to avoid supply chains linked to Uyghur forced labor.

The core issue remains: economic sanctions and trade restrictions imposed by the international community on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) are a direct response to its well-documented crimes against humanity, including forced labor, forced sterilization, cultural erasure, and mass internment of Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples in East Turkistan. In 2022, the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) affirmed that Beijing’s repressive policies in the Uyghur Region “may constitute international crimes, in particular crimes against humanity.” Despite the gravity of this authoritative assessment, the UNHRC voted down a resolution to even debate the report after Beijing launched a full-court press of co-opting and coercing smaller countries to reject the motion. 

Sanctions disrupt financial and economic incentives that drive forced labor, impose legitimate and necessary costs on governments and companies for labor exploitation, and deter businesses from engaging with supply chains tainted with forced labor. 

The International Labor Organization (ILO) updated its guidelines  in February 2024 in response to the overwhelming evidence of state-imposed forced labor in East Turkistan, which violates ILO standards through coercive labor transfers, mass internment camps, and labor exploitation under the guise of “poverty alleviation.” Uyghur and worker rights organizations have determined that forced labor systems, not sanctions, harm workers. Reports consistently demonstrate that Beijing’s coercive labor transfers are state-orchestrated mechanisms to force Uyghurs into involuntary work across industries​, including cotton, tomatoes, and auto parts, thereby tainting vast swathes of global supply chains. Uyghurs are stripped of their land and forced into factory work as part of forced assimilation that further perpetuates the erasure of their culture and identity​. 

International sanctions or legislation such as the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act are, therefore, far from arbitrary: they are legitimate tools necessary to sever financial flows that fund Beijing’s oppression of Uyghurs, a moral stain on global markets​ that demands decisive action.

“The entire economy of East Turkistan is designed to help Beijing profit from an ongoing genocide,” CFU Executive Director Rushan Abbas said. “Douhan’s long history of defending dictators and attacking legitimate actions to protect human rights is once again on full display, undermining the ability of UN entities to uphold principles of justice and demand accountability for the Uyghur people. To strengthen the integrity of the UN, we call on all governments and human rights leaders to expose Douhan’s conflicts of interest, and ensure she is excluded from all relevant policy resolutions and processes.”

The Douhan Report’s betrayal of the UN’s founding principles—to protect human dignity and promote peace and justice—undermines the very essence of international human rights law.

CFU calls on the international community to reject this deeply problematic report and urges governments worldwide to maintain and increase Uyghur region specific sanctions on China. We call on the UN to recall or amend the report to recognize the legitimate nature of sanctions, affirm the documented evidence of Beijing’s atrocities, and hold China accountable for its crimes against humanity.